[oxfordgamers] Victory for Sun

From: CWilson@xxxxxxxx

To: oxfordgamers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 12:59:49 -0500

Microsoft has been court-ordered to cease the distribution of its Java
Virtual Machine (JVM) and will have to begin including Sun's official JVM.
This is a major victory for Sun.
For those who are not familiar with the whole issue, it comes down to some
basic statements:
1. Sun invented Java.
2. Sun makes a JVM for many different operating systems.
3. Theoretically, you need only write a Java program once and it will run
on any JVM, regardless of the OS underneath.
4. This is a threat to Microsoft.
5. Microsoft added incompatibilities ("features" as Microsoft put it) so
that Java program written from it would only work in Windows.
6. The court found Microsoft guilty of this and has ordered them to
distribute the official Sun Java.
Microsoft has its own plan for write-once, run-anywhere and it is .Net, and
they did not like the idea of Java threatening that.
This is a good ruling for developers, too.
-w